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Christoph Hochhäusler’s slow-burn urban noir Till the End of the Night starts with time-lapse footage of the film’s first set, a well-to-do and apparently lived-in apartment flat, being built from scratch out of an empty room. Sadly, what looks to be challenging piece of Brechtian deconstruction is literally a plot point, as well as a not-so-subtle metaphor for the layers of deceit in the story that follows.

Perhaps because it was elevated to the Berlinale competition, where it won one of the festival’s gender-neutral supporting actor prizes for Thea Ehre, or perhaps because it seems like it’s going to break new ground in the genre with the central pairing of a gay male cop and a trans female convict. But whatever it is that might bring undue scrutiny to a serviceable piece of pulp entertainment, Till the End of the Night disappoints not because of what...

“Till the End of the Night” opens with what initially seems a Brechtian flourish: a nifty time-lapse shot of a bare shell of an apartment being painted, fitted, decorated and accessorized to an apparently lived-in state, as a vintage German torch song by Heidi Brühl crackles over the soundtrack. It’s not a film set being dressed, however, but a police one — the home base for an elaborate undercover investigation. It’s not the first time Christoph Hochhäusler’s romantic detective thriller will hint at subversive ambitions that turn out, upon closer investigation, to be rather conventional. Tossing a fraught transgender love story in the middle of an otherwise standard cop procedural, the film doesn’t much satisfy on either level, with superficial sexual politics and slack suspense. Despite a Berlinale competition slot, prospects beyond home turf appear limited.

What interest and ambiguity “Till the End of the Night” does...

For a film that hinges on deceptions, betrayals and unexpected allegiances, Till the End of the Night is alarmingly low on intrigue. Christoph Hochhäusler’s crime drama revolves around an undercover cop paired with a trans woman on early prison release to infiltrate an online drug distribution network, their smokescreen relationship tested by his lingering feelings for the person she was before transitioning. That would seem to provide a promising foundation to explore the tricky lines of gender identity and the twisty byways of love. But this unpersuasive mishmash of melodrama and suspense never builds any steam, meaning it doesn’t work in either mode.

Hochhäusler comes from the Berlin School, the new German cinema movement of the mid-1990s and early 2000s that spawned arthouse directors including Christian Petzold and Angela Schanelec, both of whom also have new films in the Berlinale’s main competition this year. The filmmakers...

The Berlin Film Festival on Monday unveiled the titles selected for its official competition as well as its sidebar Encounters competitive section.

A total of 18 films have been selected for the international competition with highlights including Christian Petzold’s latest film Roter Himmel (Afire), Margarethe von Trotta directing Phantom Thread star Vicky Krieps in Ingeborg Bachmann — Journey Into the Desert, and Philippe Garrel returns with a new feature titled The Plough.

Scroll down for the full lineup.

This morning the festival also revealed an extra special screening: Actor and filmmaker Sean Penn will debut a documentary titled Superpower, a film shot in Ukraine last year at the outbreak of Russia’s invasion and follows president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

The Berlin Film Festival takes place February 16-26.

Organizers have already announced more than 100 titles across sidebars spanning Panorama, Forum, and Berlinale Special. The festival had initially done a good job of increasing...